CHAPTER VI 



ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS TO LOW SOUND 



BY this time our occupations no longer bore any relation 

 to the indications of the clock. All twenty-four hours 

 round there was the same effect of full daylight ; the tem- 

 perature between midnight and eight in the morning being 

 perhaps lower than at other hours, but with no appreciable 

 dimming of the sun's light. Thus we started for our marches, 

 halted, cooked, and slept whenever was most convenient, the 

 tendency being to lengthen out the days, as measured between 

 intervals of sleep. The freedom from fear of benightment 

 is a great relief. The corresponding lack of stimulus to hurry 

 is a loss. On the whole, the loss overbalances the gain. 



Our plan, for what must be called June 25, was to 

 climb a hill anywhere to the south of camp, looking for a 

 view, which the cloud-roof did not render a hopeless pros- 

 pect, for it was a little higher than before and very much 

 thinner, the sun even breaking through sometimes. Pedersen 

 returned with Bergen from Advent Bay, and went off again 

 up the main valley after reindeer, whereof two presently fell 

 to his rifle. After laying out our things to dry, Garwood 

 and I withdrew the ice-axes from their place as tent-poles, 

 and, leaving the tent flat on the ground, set forth up Fox 

 Valley, which opened to the south just behind camp. We 

 followed its left bank over snow beds, bogs, and stony tracks, 

 descending into and crossing two deep, precipitous - sided 

 gullies, whose streams, covered by snow-tunnels, drain glacier- 

 filled hollows in the mountain mass to the west. Beyond the 



